The September 5 draft Order on eliminating access arbitrage is the FCC’s latest effort to address what is also known as “access stimulation”, and they made little effort to hide their true feelings on the issue. While their intent when it comes to certain business plans seems quite clear, some new provisions in the proposed order could lead to unintended outcomes and impact service providers who are far removed from any activities typically regarded as access stimulation.

My May 3rd blog post was entitled “Access Step 6 - Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace . ..” Last week demonstrated that was a bit of an overstatement. In this business, one rarely has to forever hold their peace. Parties that had concerns about the tandem/transport portion of the Step 6 tariff filings and rate implementation took the logical next step – oppose the filings during the approval interval. CenturyLink, Level 3, and Sprint all filed petitions to reject or suspend and investigate the Step 6 tariff filings of one or more price cap ILECS.

The New York Public Service Commission has ordered, in Case 09-M-0527, a reduction to intrastate originating access charges to bring them to the level of interstate originating access charges in two steps. By November 30, 2014, all LECs had to file tariffs reducing their intrastate originating access rates by 50% of the differential between those rates and the carrier's interstate rates for comparable service in effect on January 1, 2015.

We’re in the midst of reviewing all of the ILEC “Step 3” filings so our CLEC clients will know what their new terminating end office switched access rates must look like (or be based on in the case of composite access rates) effective July 31, 2014.